JSW Cement

“See, as we had guided last time, high-single digits is the forecast that we've given for the year, and we continue to hold ourselves.”

“No, we continue to maintain it will be high-teens growth over last year.”

“With the momentum that exists, we expect to meet what we had committed in quarter 1, which is high-single digits and hoping to improve that.”

“As committed, during quarter 2, we commissioned the waste heat recovery system and the alternate fuel rehandling co-processing system in the Nagaur Integrated Unit.”

“So, capex continues in North, and some land acquisition also continues for the projects which we had shared with you earlier in the previous calls.”

“Correct. It should be around May and June next year.”

“Dolvi, the work starts and should be completed within 20- 21 months from January '27. So that's again FY29, probably the second quarter or the end of third quarter, early third quarter.”

“JSW Steel's blast furnace is ready in calendar '28 sometimes. So, we want to be ready for that slag.”

“No, Nagaur should definitely improve from here. If you can see, we did about five lakh eighty thousand in this quarter, including sale of clinker.”

“Happy to announce that at Nagaur, we have achieved EBITDA breakeven in quarter 2.”

“So, for cement, the volume numbers in the East, the growth has been around 20% Y-o-Y, and across the South and the West, South has been around 13%.”

“For quarter 2, it was around INR170 crores was the RMC revenues.”

“It's very minimal because we haven't yet ramped up the volumes enough to cover the fixed costs.”

“If the arbitrage becomes fairly significant, we may probably revisit it.”

“We remain constructive on the demand outlook for the balance of the year, particularly as infrastructure execution and construction activity gather pace.”

“And with the kind of cost pressures that the industry is facing, we believe the price table that we and that the industry is targeting will hold on.”

“It's been fairly positive, in fact, across GGBS and cement all across.”

“Coming to your specific question that you asked now around the drought situation, in our catchment area, we are not seeing that play out for now, the geography that we sell.”

“with the cost pressures that we were alluding to earlier and the general increase in demand, we expect the entire price table to start to increase or the pricing to move towards the supply side.”

“With fuel and other input costs remaining elevated, we expect these price increases to sustain and support the company's margins.”

“These initiatives are expected to substantially reduce our cost in quarter 3 and quarter 4.”

“Cement realization for quarter 2 FY27 was INR4,781 per ton, an increase of 3% Y-o-Y, but a softening of 3% quarter-on-quarter.”

“GGBS realizations for quarter 2 FY27 was INR3,749 a ton. We would consider this a normal variation due to mix, and we continue to maintain our strategy of stable pricing.”

“Our clinker-to-cement factor increased to 58% with the ramp-up of North operations, especially as we currently are selling a higher quantity of OPC to maximize our kiln usage.”

“In terms of balance sheet, net debt was INR4,287 crores at the end of September. Net debt to EBITDA stood at 3.2x.”

“Average cost of debt for the quarter was stable quarter-on-quarter at 7.67%.”

“Now, we have been utilizing the IPO proceeds that reflect in the net debt situation. And there has been a marginal additional drawdown of debt, but that number is quite small.”

“So, of course, this number is very marginal, but we will see more impact of this going forward. However, though I make this statement, we don't see a huge impact on our average debt cost because of the way we have financed or the debt mix itself.”

“But at the same time, we have a mandate to keep the net debt to EBITDA below 3. We will continue to be around 3 for maybe a year or so more.”

“As all of you are aware, pet coke prices are at very high levels, and this will create more cost pressure in the coming quarter.”

“And we do have FX loss. Not all the foreign debt is hedged by us as a policy.”

“See, the pet coke is hitting now INR3.08 today if somebody has to buy spot.”

“Quarter 2 FY27 has seen a challenging external environment, marked by geopolitical uncertainties arising from the ongoing West Asia crisis and weaker monsoon, which has impacted the broader operating environment.”

“Our total volume increased very strongly by 26% Y-o-Y to 3.93 million tons, which is among the highest in the industry.”

“Taking this product-wise, cement volumes sold was 2.29 million metric tons, increased by almost 40% Y-o-Y.”

“Consolidated revenue was INR1,912 crores. That's an increase of 33% year-on-year and 0.8% quarter-on-quarter, despite this being a monsoon quarter.”

“Consolidated operating EBITDA was INR278 crores.”

“PBT was INR101 crores during the quarter, including positive contribution of nearly INR20 crores from JV. PAT for the quarter was about INR77 crores.”